longer.blue

When you ask somebody about what makes souls games so difficult, most people will probably say “bosses”. Malenia, Radahn, Nameless King, Lady Maria, Gael, perhaps even Artorias or Sir Alonne, the names that came to be the faces of FromSoft’s boss design. And rightfully so, it cannot be understated how many hours we all spent fighting Malenia just to discover that she has a second phase. With every new game, FromSoft always ups the difficulty and quality with regards to the bosses, clearly making an emphasis. They are after all the culmination of a level or an area you spent last hour on, or a huge plot point with a big reveal. Bosses are a powerful tool of both storytelling and gameplay and nobody uses them like FromSoftware does. However, it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when difficulty of souls games didn’t come from bosses, but rather from the areas themselves. Newer players will probably agree with me, but after having your fill with Elden Ring, you go into Dark Souls for the first time ever, expecting a similar experience, but instead you are met with a very different challenge. You no longer breeze through areas to find a boss to beat and get that dopamine rush. Instead, you stumble and fall and die again and again and again to the threats that are located outside of boss arena. You slowly realize, you die way more often to everything that is not a boss, rather than to the bosses themselves. There is one area that encapsulates it more than any other. The area that most players hate with burning passion and perhaps the sole reason for choosing the “master key” as a gift when starting the game. I am, of course, talking about Blighttown. Imagine this, you just beat the duo gargoyles boss, somehow found the basement key and by a pure miracle (quick google search) figured out what door it opens. You then proceed yet again to be amazed by FromSoft’s incredible level design and interconnectivity and you stumble into a street brawl with dogs and assassins on the way to arguably the second worst boss in the game in the smallest arena. You then go through dark and disgusting sewers, where half the enemies are poisonous rats and the other half are ugly lizard-like creatures that spew some mist that insta kills you upon filling the gauge inflicting a curse that permanently lowers your max HP. You find a funny looking merchant, a huge locked door behind a broken fence and a small staircase that leads to some confusing architecture and what seems to be a boss arena. After the fight with an ugly drake and stupid mage that keeps shooting spells from the top balcony, you get the key. The key must open the door you saw earlier. You cannot wait for this nightmare to be over, you rush to that door only to discover that it leads even lower into the ground. There isn’t really a choice, you must press forward. The first enemy you see is a huge barbarian with a giant club, dealing an ungodly amount of damage. You proceed and meet surprisingly quick ghouls that love to grab you. Somehow, you got poisoned, but the icon is different and your hp is going down faster than usual. Turns out, there are silent snipers, that inflict toxic, a stronger version of poison. Not only you just saw three new types of enemies that are more dangerous than anything you met before, but the area, it seems, doesn’t know light exists. It is so dark, you can barely see where you are going, but then the bridge starts moving. Of course, how could you not foresee that some passageways are not stable and will kill you. The bonfire lingers ahead, you finally reach it and realize… that was only the beginning. However bullshit you think Blighttown is, I guarantee you, it is even more bullshit. Huge barbarians, ghouls, fire spitting dogs, fire spitting spiders, toxic snipers, shifting passageways, confusing architecture, poison swamp, poison slugs and worst of all no escape. And that is why I consider Blighttown to be the best area in the entire game. To uncover this, we need to first understand where the difficulty of specifically Dark Souls comes from and what FromSoft want you to experience. Unlike its successors, the difficulty doesn’t come from the bosses, but rather the areas. The enemies, their placement, how quick they are, how familiar you are with them, the terrain, and so on. There is also the other side to it: how you can deal with all the hardship you are faced with. In many games you have a lot of ways to heal yourself: food, spells, passive heal. Healing tools in Dark Souls, however, are very limited. Yes, you have your Estus Flask and maybe you have a healing spell, but that’s about it. Spells have limited charges, Estus Flask is always there, but it has only 5 charges at this point in the game,10 - if you kindle your bonfire. Also, your armour can be upgraded, improving your defences, but it wears out with every hit you take and needs to be repaired at the blacksmith. So, the main difficulty of the game doesn’t only come from everything that can kill you, but also all the ways you can prevent your death and negate the damage received (I would place weapons and your damage output in this category too). Embrace yourself for the third aspect of Dark Souls’ difficulty, your movement though the level. What I mean by this is how mobile you are, how you can travel, how you traverse big distances, how you can get out of a jam. You, naturally, can walk, occasionally run, from point A to point B. There are often shortcuts that will allow you to avoid repeating big or difficult segment of the level once you reach a certain point. There are also Homeward Bones and “Homeward” Miracle that will teleport you to the last bonfire rested at. Later in the game we unlock an ability to fast travel to certain bonfires, but that does not concern Blighttown. Those are the three ways Dark Souls sets its difficulty: everything that can kill you, everything that deals with damage received and how you move through the level. FromSoft use all of that to create that tension. That feeling that you are alone with very limited resources in a dying but still a very dangerous world. Most of the time, the developers are very generous with help within your reach. You are always relatively short distance away from a blacksmith, that can upgrade your gear or a merchant that can sell you something useful. In Undead Burg you have two undead merchants and Andre, ready to help you out. Not to mention that you are always within a close proximity to Firelink Shrin. In the sewers you no longer have Andre, but you have a merchant that will sell you gear and even Gold Pine Resin, a buff to a weapon that the main boss of the area is weak to. There are also shortcuts you can unlock. It all crumbles, however, when you reach Blighttown. In there, you don’t have Andre, you don’t have any merchants that will sell you something useful. You have one bonfire at the top, one bonfire at the bottom and hell around you. Everything that’s been mentioned creates a very distinct and unforgettable experience. You are trapped in the worst that world has to offer. No way to go back to safety and try to look for an alternative route, no way to buff yourself up and make your life easier. You have to push forward. You are drowned in all the worst enemies in the game, in the middle of a confusing unstable architecture, but you can’t look for a way up, because there is no way up, only way down. I think that feeling of being trapped in this shithole with seemingly no way out is exactly what FromSoftware were going for. The apogee of hardship and challenge. Let’s step back a bit. Think of any other area in the game. The sewers, Sen’s Fortress, even Lost Izalith. No matter how hard or easy the area is, the final boss of this area is your way out. It is your dose of dopamine, your feeling of accomplishment, your sigh of relief. Do you remember what you felt when you beat Quelaag? I am sure, you were very happy, but that happiness didn’t stay very long, did it? First, you discovered that there is a whole new fire area. Then, the realization that you need to find your way out of this hell all on your own starts to slowly kill you inside. After some trial and error, the way out has been found and THAT is the moment you actually feel relieved. Relieved that his hell is over. You survived the hardest area in the game, all on your own. You fought and died and tried and made mistakes and cursed everything you saw. You struggled and thought this nightmare would never end. But then it did. And you did all that all on your own, without any blacksmiths, merchants, Firelink Shrine. That victory was the result of only your hard work. That is the beauty of Blighttown. The game throws everything it has at you, bullshit enemies, sloppy architecture, toxic, poison, giant boulders. You are cut off from the rest of the world, from soothing theme of Firelink Shrine, from any sort of help. But then you prevail. You go through the trial by fire, you come out victorious, proving to yourself and to the game that no challenge is too much for you. That makes Blighttown such a unique experience, not like anything else the game has to offer. Feeling of loneliness, helplessness, desperation and abandonment overwhelm you from start to finish, which makes your escape so much more satisfying and deserved. I truly do believe that FromSoftware did all of that intentionally. Blighttown is my favourite area in Dark Souls, because of its unique design and unique role in the game. It is something FromSoftware never replicated going forward, mainly because every game after that had fast travel. One last thing, do not mistake my love for this area’s design for me loving to go through it. On most of my runs in Dark Souls I get the master key and skip this shithole with no remorse, but every once in a while I come through Blighttown and appreciate what this level represents while cursing Miyazaki in every language I know.